60 % RMG makers to lose job by 2030

Around 60 per cent garment workers will lose their jobs in Bangladesh by 2030 when robots will replace the workers with the invasion of the automation by the factory management, a top official of the BASIS said today.

Besides, in the leather sector, around 35 per cent workers will meet the same fate and in the tourism sector, the percentage of the jobless people will stand around 20 by the same time, said Syed Almas Kabir, President of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

“This is very alarming for Bangladesh. Around 1.4 million workers in the furniture and 0.6 million in agro-processing sectors will be rendered jobless,” said Kabir while he was presenting a keynote paper on “Fourth Industrial Revolution – Preparations” at a hotel in Dhaka held by Bangladesh Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BMCCI).

Diplomats, exporters and importers from different countries and many government high-ups attended the BMCCI the programme.

The automation will create an impact in the agriculture sector as the people will use drones for using pesticides in their farms instead of workers.

“Education needs to keep pace in the changing to compete with the new technology. So, skills are the most important as it is a magic word,” he said.

In future, the developed and developing countries may set up manufacturing units in their own countries and will run those with the help of the robots, as there will be no need for workers, he added.

Few technologies that are coming and those are blockchains, simulation, cloud computing, 3D printing, adapting manufacturing, human-machine cooperation, speech processing, censor, big data, virtual and augmented reality.

“These are the scales which we have to need to really focus right now as because, the fourth industrial revolution will be starting to create an impact in Bangladesh by the next three to five years. If we don’t teach our university and college students accordingly, then they will be in great loss,” he said.

He suggested turning the country’s education system into more technology oriented so that human resources can be transformed according to industrial demand.

For instance, if the robotics replaces the workers, then Bangladesh can produce robots for developed and developing countries.

Salman F. Rahman, the private industry and investment affairs adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, suggested the business leaders to prepare themselves to face the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution.

“The challenges, poised to be created due to the fourth industrial revolution, will be extremely tough,” Rahman said. “We need to adapt with the change and model our own network in line with the demand of the latest technologies,” Rahman said.